After hearing from around 60 residents, the Fullerton City Council last night voted against agreeing to run a proposed round-the-clock homeless facility and multi-service center on State College on behalf of the County of Orange. That vote apparently dooms the effort to purchase the former furniture store, which has been spearheaded by Supervisor Shawn Nelson, for such a purpose.

The votes broke down along lines of gender rather than party. Councilmembers Whitaker, Sebourn, and Chaffee voted against the agreement; Jan Flory and Jennifer Fitzgerald supported it.

Orange Juice writer Ryan Cantor, a member of the Library Board (which recently closed down the Hunt Branch in response to problems involving a nearby homeless encampment — itself recently broken up and dispersed, as covered in this story for the Fullerton Rag, which I’m going to start calling the “Frag”) had written a piece before the meeting offering his analysis of the situation that we didn’t get to publish. We’ll include the still-relevant portions of his commentary below, then I’ll add some of my own. Here’s Ryan, in dark red:

I have to admit, I’ve had a very hard time with this issue. Part of it has been lack of information; part is willful ignorance, but now it’s time to ante up. The agreement is terrible, the location is horrible, and the leadership provided by our elected officials is the worst part of all.

I doubt you’re going to read this, Mr. Nelson, but if you do — this is all your fault.

The moral complications on this issue make me physically ill. We need this shelter like we need new water pipes. The situation at the Hunt Library obviously underscores the present need. We just evicted several dozen people from a semi-permanent village while this proposed shelter is two years away from opening its doors. In the interim, the community volunteers will continue to shoulder the entire burden of providing refuge and at best the problem will only not get worse. And that’s the only argument supporting this agreement. As flawed as it is, we have to accept it because our alternative is the status quo, which can’t be allowed to persist.

Listing what the city should get in an agreement with the county is pretty simple.

1) The city must have the authority and means to correct wrongs, including lost property value

2) The county must quickly build shelters in other areas of the county

3) The shelter shall not be operated next to a school or park

Well, instead, we got a multi-jurisdictional agreement that makes it nearly impossible for the city to unilaterally address community complaints (they must go through a multi-agency committee and only after some bean counter says we have the right number of beans in the right window of time . . . even then there’s no guarantee that anything gets fixed), the county makes no promise to build shelters elsewhere or to not import homeless citizens from other areas of the county, and the shelter is going to be next door to a school and a stone throw from a park.

Listing solutions to how we get out of this mess isn’t so simple, but here’s a good place to start.

1) Come clean

2) Accept responsibility

3) Start fixing it now

Come clean. I’ve had a very hard time understanding who knew what when about this shelter, why the location was picked, or who ultimately benefits from the deal. It’s murky and well, nothing good ever came out of a political swamp. Any council member who no longer can say no to Shawn Nelson, due to a personal or business relationship with him or the realtor associated with this deal, ought to come clean with Fullerton. Perhaps it’s just a perception of partiality, but given everything surrounding this deal, we’re owed as much transparency as possible. The rest of council ought to be honest about what they knew and when. Mr. Nelson ought to be honest about what conversations he had and when he had them as well. There’s no reason why we can’t hose the mud off this deal to avoid any misconception of backroom favors.

Accept Responsibility. No elected official has ever stated they are responsible for the homeless situation in Fullerton. That’s really the root cause of our issue. If someone had the courage to stand up and claim this issue as their own, on pain of losing their political future, we’d probably see good things happen as a result. Of course, homelessness is the third rail of local politics and this isn’t likely to happen. This means you, Mr. Nelson. Had you carried the football all the way on this one, we wouldn’t be here today. This is your shelter and you ought to be leading the charge and taking questions from the public in a public forum to defend your decision. Force feeding the city under threat of “Sovereign Immunity” is not demonstrating leadership or accepting responsibility. It’s grandstanding and bullying. Do your job, even if it means getting punched in the mouth for six hours at a council meeting. You’re a big boy, you can handle it.

Start Fixing It Now. We need a viable temporary solution that can be implemented in 30-45 days, certainly not 2 years. It doesn’t need to be gold plated, but it needs to be better than nothing so we can bridge the gap to a multi-service center. We’ve been told repeatedly that a leased property is not an option for the county. Well, that’s bunk. It’s within their means to lease a property and get homeless of the streets tomorrow while they look to buy the right space. Let’s get ‘er done Mr. Nelson.

Come on Shawn. Quit screwing around and lead.

Google images attributes this (originally black-and-white) image of a homeless camp to the Fullerton Rag, but I couldn’t find it there when I followed the link. (Anyone from there want to claim and explain it?)

I give Supervisor Nelson more credit than Ryan does: I think that he was responding to a serious need — and that he took a significant political risk in doing so. The process was pretty opaque, somewhat of a sneak attack on residents. On the other hand, I don’t think that that’s what ended up derailing it; I think that a slower process involving more consultation might well have had the same result — it just may have come more quickly and may not have come as close to succeeding.

My interest here is on the interim measures about which Ryan writes. While I got reasonably educated on homeless issues while working with Occupy (and especially Occupy Santa Ana, for which this has been their main issue), I can’t hold myself out to be an expert. Here’s my understanding of some of the considerations, which should be taken less as “gospel truth” than as an invitation to those with more expertise, from all sides, to correct my misconceptions.

First, the homeless community is heterogeneous. It includes everything from families with children (and pets) to the more “hard-core” homeless of the sort who were at the homeless camp near the Hunt. These groups have different needs — and they also probably are received differently by the public. My guess is that if people in Fullerton knew that the facility on State College would be serving families with children — people who might otherwise, if they could afford it, be staying in the motels recently discussed on these pages — they would not necessarily be hostile to the effort.

My guess (without having watched those 60 speakers) is that the neighbors’ primary concern is with safety. I hear people talking about a criminal element, but it might be better to talk about them as “outlaws” — not necessarily criminals, but people who put themselves outside of lawful and polite society. They don’t want to be governed; they want to be self-reliant and left alone. (Not all homeless single males — the bulk of the non-family homeless — fall into this truculent category. I don’t know how prevalent it is.)

Families with children need shelter — and maybe that is a purpose to which the State College facility might be put. “Self-reliant” homeless — maybe they don’t. A lot of them seem to say that they don’t, that they’d rather camp out themselves — and while for all I know they may be a minority of the single-adult homeless, they still have their needs which can be addressed differently — and reasonably promptly, on an interim basis.

What are those needs?

1) They need a safe place to store their things. In other words: lockers.

On an emergency basis, that seems more doable — and much less expensive — than building a new facility. This doesn’t require much in the way of “governance”; it just makes their lives easier, safer, and cleaner. (Will lockers sometimes be used for drugs? Probably. Some of that, we can live with — but if we want to arrest people for storing drugs in lockers, we can. They’ll hide drugs elsewhere.)

What the cities and counties would need is for the state to protect them from liability for negligence for providing “locker and bathroom” services. Someone could put a bomb in a locker; someone could shoot up and die in a bathroom. We don’t want either to happen, but such tragic possibilities are part of the cost of giving the hard-core homeless some of the services they most need. And serving the needs of the hard-core homeless in such a way would make it easier to serve other homeless, such as families, in ways that are more appropriate for them, and that a community may better abide.

About Greg Diamond

Prolix worker's rights and government accountability attorney. General Counsel of CATER, the Coalition of Anaheim Taxpayers for Economic Responsibility, a non-partisan group of people sick of local corruption.
Deposed as Northern Vice Chair of DPOC in April 2014 when his anti-corruption and pro-consumer work in Anaheim infuriated the Building Trades and Teamsters in spring 2014, who then worked with the lawless and power-mad DPOC Chair to eliminate his internal oversight.
Runs for office sometimes, so far to offer a challenge to someone nasty who would otherwise have run unopposed. Someday he might pick a fight intending to win it rather than just to dent someone. You'll know it when you see it.
None of his pre-putsch writings ever spoke for the Democratic Party at the local, county, state, national, or galactic level.
A family member works part-time as a campaign treasurer. He doesn't directly profit from that relatively small compensation and it doesn't affect his coverage. (He does not always favor her clients, though she might hesitate to take one that he hated. He does advise some local campaigns informally and generally without compensation. If that changes, he will declare the interest.
He also runs a less frequently published blog called "The Brean," for his chosen hometown, where he is now fighting with its wealthiest and most avaricious citizen-donors. This just seems to be his way.

11 Comments

I suggest they visit San Francisco and meet with those who successfully run homeless shelters and drug rehab centers in the middle of a populated city. A bomb in a locker? I STRONGLY suggest we become homeless for a weekend. Greg…Occupy is not a good temp check on how the homeless REALLY live. The homeless are trying to survive daily and have more3 important things on their minds than blowing up shit.

I worked on the wharf in SF and got to know the homeless population who lived there quite well. Petty theft… sure…drugs…yes… who wouldn’t get high to cope with being homeless? The homeless are more generous than any rich person I met and they look out for each other.

The needs you described have been available for decades in the city of SF and it works just fine. They need to learn from the ones who make it happen everyday. And enough with those who cry NIMBY…they are the same people who don’t want group homes in their neighborhood either.

Inge, I’m not suggesting that a bomb would come from the homeless. It would more likely come from a crazy anti-homeless “activist.”

Like it or not, that’s the kind of possibility that police and city officials do have to consider: “if we let them keep things in lockers, can we protect that area?” I hope and expect that the answer would be “yes,” but that would require more monitoring than a free-for-all.

I’ve lived in my car for a weekend or two (when unable to afford a motel while traveling.) The thing that made a big difference to me was that I had a 24-hour gym membership and could use their facilities. Homeless people should have a similar resource.

I completely agree with you. But the bomb thing? Nothing even remotely happened like that in SF. They have shelters, they have what you are describing…showers… new clothes that were donated… don’t know if they have lockers that they can use whenever they want. These days anyone can do crazy things anywhere they want…meaning planting a bomb. It doesn’t have to be anti-homeless. I think the police are more of a threat to the homeless, especially the FPD.

We can’t worry about what-ifs — otherwise we won’t move forward with anything worth while. The homeless need help. A few weeks ago I was driving in Brea and saw an elderly woman…could be someone’s grandma standing on the island at an intersection…holding a sign asking for spare change. I usually see older men around OC asking for money, but this is the first time I saw an elderly woman. There is something seriously wrong with our society to allow this to happen.

The only time I can remember when our city officials gave a crap about the homeless is last year when a serial killer was killing them…he was captured in Anaheim.

And there are plenty of empty buildings all over OC that can used to shelter them. If there were some disaster…you can bet that empty buildings would be used to house those displaced. It can be done if they wanted to.

I would like to give a major shout out to the Fullerton PD and the Narcotics Unit for totally screwing over the homeless with your 6 week plan… You are ALL Terrorists…
Whoever wants to talk shit and be mad and trash me and what I say… DO IT… Nothing can hurt me after what I experienced at the Hunt…
Our Homeless friends were treated worse than animals… All people that were involved in using our homeless friends as pawns in their political game are cursed until the end of time… I am DISGUSTED!!!!!!!

The county HAS to worry about “what ifs” . If they provide any services at any location and something goes wrong, or someone is hurt the county has liability and litigation exposure. I am a foster parent and deal with the county system every day. It is insufficient and inefficient for the most part. Everyone and anyone from the lowest level social worker can personally be sued for any action. This leaves an entire branch of public services afraid to move an inch or help anyone. It’s absurd. This situation is no different . Just for informational purposes, if a police officer comes in contact with a homeless man or woman with children, the children will be taken away to protective services and placed at Orangewood or Emergency Shelter Homes( foster care). It’s not pretty.

*Guess we could get the Bureau of Land Management to send in a “Homeless Agent” to supply blankets, water and beef……just like we did with our Native American Brothers and Sisters.

The elected’s need to think “out of the box” and start using philosophies and scenarios that are currently working in NO CAL – as Inge said. Send some local electeds on a junkett to SF. Drop them off at 6AM on Grant Avenue at the entrance to China Town.

They will get a quick idea…..of how Homelessness NEEDS TO BE SOLVED nation wide.

I actually despise the 11th Commandment. It is the equivalent of protecting the funny uncle, it is disgraceful, and frankly it is what has the GOP is such a bad place today. When we refuse to speak ill of other Republicans, we fail to clean house. We fail to “protect the brand” if you will. As Republicans, we should be the FIRST to speak out against others of the party who give the GOP a bad name, because it sullies all conservatives.

Look at Anaheim. The face of Republican leadership for a decade now has been the “Masters of the Universe” funneling money into the pork troughs of their buddies, and leaving residential neighborhoods in disrepair and neglect. Now that the aftermath of Pringle’s failed policies are coming to light, we have a Republican majority doing all they can to stubbornly cling to his outdated patterns of governance. It is so bad, that the ONE true Conservative on that dais is being beaten up by the others, to make him go away or shut up.

Because the GOP (and I count myself in this criticism even though I am far from a Republican insider) has failed to grab these morons by the scruff of the neck and make it clear that their increasing greed and arrogance is entirely out of control, voters will clean house come November. The combination of District elections giving voters a genuine choice for the first time since Anaheim grew to the point of making at large elections no longer viable (decades), and the distaste for the current Republican offerings, might very well lead to losing some seats to liberals, and I am FURIOUS about that.

My Republican brethren will claim it is the fault of the ACLU and Los Amigos, and in the name of hanging on to those seats claim that we must block District elections for the greater good. The irony is that none of them bother seeing that the answer is to become the kind of leaders that voters do not WANT to exchange for someone else. Is that not obvious? Like abusive husbands whose wives are threatening to leave after someone finally pays attention to them, they stand between the woman and the front door, menacingly growling that nobody is leaving until they say they can leave….once upon a time that woman loved you enough to marry you, once upon a time someone picked you out of the crowd and chose you above all others, and somewhere the vision has been lost for keeping that relationship healthy.

Its time for the GOP to remove the stained wife-beater tank, shower, shave, and go buy some flowers.

I hope Irvine can learn from Anaheim, a treatise on what NOT to do with fellow electeds when differences arise, or that majority may slip there as it is almost certain to do in Anaheim.

As Republicans who refuse to stand up against the bullies that represent an increasing majority of Central Committee, (or those who own the Central Committee) it is our own damn fault that we are about to be thrown over for a bunch of liberals, Fix it, Now.

Is it human beings hiding behind their parties? There are many Democrats who behave badly as well. I do have a friend who votes her party line and thinks she is participating in democracy. My opinion is that she is just plain lazy and can’t find the time to do the necessary homework to make an informed vote.